Free Another Life by Peter Anghelides Page A

the shop. The door closed, and the shop bell tinkled prettily behind him.
    Toshiko tutted. ‘Glendower Broadsword. You’ve tried to create an avatar for the game with no weaknesses or flaws. People aren’t like that in real life. No one’s a fairy-tale character, all good or all evil. And neither are characters in the game.’
    Owen growled at her. ‘Well, my character is. Like I said, this isn’t a psychology session.’
    ‘You’re in denial.’
    ‘Very good,’ smiled Owen. ‘I can hardly dispute that statement.’
    ‘Well, be careful what you wish for, Prince Charming.’
    ‘I’m glad you’re not my Cinderella.’
    Toshiko wiggled her typing fingers, and looked out of the window expectantly.
    Owen followed her gaze. A huge sphere of metal and glass crashed out of the sky and onto the pavement, crumpling and distorting as it came to rest. Owen nearly leapt out of his real-life office chair with shock.
    For a second, he thought the whole thing had dropped onto a couple of white horses in the street, before he saw that they were shackled to the tangled remains of the shape. They were apparently unharmed, but still attached to the wreckage by golden reins. Two coachmen in pink waistcoats staggered back to their feet, and helped a beautiful young woman to step gingerly from the strewn debris of her coach. As she brushed gingerly at the shards of glass on her iridescent ball gown, the coachmen spun on their heels and transformed into rodents before scurrying off. The coach was now merely the remains of a large pumpkin splattered on the pavement. The woman’s ball gown had dissolved into smutted rags. When she saw them, she gave a little cry of despair and proceeded to limp off down the street through the uncaring pedestrians.
    ‘All right, Tosh. Do you think I could have a go now?’
    ‘I’ll leave you to it, Owen.’
    ‘I certainly prefer the real Penny Pasteur. I’d love to see what she’d make of this.’
    Toshiko threw him a disapproving look. ‘Her graphics wouldn’t be this good, for a start. She’d only have her current computer. Assuming it is a she, and not some hairy-arsed fifty-year-old bloke taking you for a virtual ride while he secretly plays with himself in a late-night Internet cafe.’
    ‘You paint a lovely picture.’
    ‘For some of these game-players, Second Reality is just an escape from the dull reality of their daily routine. They can be brave confident characters, instead of sad antisocial losers. They can visit places they can’t afford. They can even have sex with complete strangers. Lots of them. It’s literally a different life for them, Owen. It’s an addiction. Who knows who Penny Pasteur really is?’
    ‘I think I know her pretty well by now.’
    A horse whinnied in the street outside. A woman’s voice shrieked, ‘Oh my Lord!’
    Owen offered Toshiko his most winning smile. ‘So let me find Penny on Second Reality . Really get to know her with these fantastic new… what did you call them? These fantastic new interaction gestures.’ He waved his hands at her, and for a moment found himself floating in mid-air.
    Toshiko shook her virtual head. ‘No way. I have downloaded a broad selection of different avatar profiles from Second Reality ’s main server on the West Coast. You can have fun interacting with them while I finish off the freestanding version of this. So there is no need to connect this to the Internet, Owen. We want to keep this well away from the black-hats and the hackers. This version of Second Reality should not make any kind of connection through the Torchwood firewall.’
    ‘What’s your problem with hackers?’ grumbled Owen. ‘You’re a genius, you can handle them.’
    ‘It’s not me I’m worried about,’ she retorted, ‘it’s you. You’re a security liability because you have no idea what you’re doing on a computer. I mean, you haven’t even got the hang of creating your own avatar. Do you realise that you originally based yours on